There’s nothing more exciting to a film lover than learning how their favorite movies were developed and executed. When we saw some fantastic behind-the-scenes photos from famous films on Every Day I Show, by way of Cinephilia and Beyond, we were blown away. The snapshots of iconic filmmakers directing their equally popular stars offers a peek at the history of cinema in the making. Head to our gallery for a look at directors in action and actors preparing their characters, collaborating on some of film’s greatest stories ever told.
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Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman, John Travolta
Travolta on shooting the dance scene:
“Quentin recommended the Twist. And I said, ‘Well, Little Johnny Travolta won the Twist contest when I was eight years old, so I know every version. But you may add other novelty dances that were very special in the day… There was the Batman, the Hitchhiker, the Swim, as well as the Twist.’ And I showed them to him, and he loved them. I said, ‘I’ll teach Uma the steps, and when you want to see a different step, call it out.'”
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Martin Scorsese, Sharon Stone, Robert De Niro
Sharon Stone on her role in the 1995 film:
“I think for a long time people just did not know what to do with me. I looked like a Barbie doll and then I had this voice like I spend my life in a bar, and I said things that were alarming and had ideas that didn’t make sense. And finally I got together with Marty and Bob and they were like, ‘Give it all to us, baby, just let her rip if you’ve got it, we want it, let’s see what you can do.'”
Photo credit: Brian Hamill
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Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro
Scorsese on De Niro’s famous line about being an animal:
“God is not a torturer. He wants us to be merciful with ourselves. And Jake kind of gets there.”
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Alfred Hitchcock, Janet Leigh
Leigh on filming the famous shower scene:
“When I saw it condensed and edited in a way that only Hitchcock could do it, it was so frightening to me that it made me realize that it’s an extremely vulnerable position we’re in, while in a shower. I never even thought about it that way before. I just couldn’t get back in a shower after that. I just thought it was stupid to put yourself in that position.”
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Stanley Kubrick, Jack Nicholson
Kubrick on the paranormal elements of The Shining and Jack Torrance’s fractured psyche:
“For the purposes of telling the story, my view is that the paranormal is genuine. Jack’s mental state serves only to prepare him for the murder, and to temporarily mislead the audience.”
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Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford
An excerpt from Harrison Ford’s script notes for Raiders of the Lost Ark: “Too Solo-ish.”
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Francis Ford Coppola, Marlon Brando
Coppola’s letter to Marlon Brando in 1973 after the Streetcar Named Desire star had already turned down the part of Vito Corleone:
“At times, I try really hard to imagine what you’re like in your thoughts. I realized that you’ve been in the strange state of adoration and exhibition for 25 years now, intensely…
All I’m saying is that if you will be in this movie; I will do my very best to make it be good; and human, and express the notion that the Mafia is only a metaphor for America and capitalism, which will do anything to protect and perpetuate itself. (I will do this anyway, if you’re not in the film…but if you were in it, it would be better, and you would help me with your ideas as I work on the script.)”
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Woody Allen directing himself and cast.
“You learn very little from the past. I’m better than when I made Take the Money and Run, but not much better than when I made Annie Hall. I’ve learned very little after that.”
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Billy Wilder, Gloria Swanson, Cecil B. DeMille
Swanson on her outrageous character in the 1950 film:
“A lot of people, you know, ask me if Sunset Boulevard was my own life — which is rather odd. I’ve no dead bodies in my pool swimming pool and a few other things haven’t yet happened to me. So that was difficult. I had an idea that it was perhaps some personal combination of personalities out there, but I don’t actually know of anyone who lived like Norma Desmond.”
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Sofia Coppola, Kirsten Dunst
Coppola on casting Dunst:
“She was the one that came to mind when I was reading the Antonia Fraser biography. When they described her personality I thought this was something that Kirsten could portray. She has the bubbly, silly, not serious side, but then she has the real depth and substance for when she evolves. I felt like she had both and also that she could carry the whole film. And being German, she looks like how they described her.”
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Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo
Karina on working with Godard:
“That was the genius of Jean-Luc Godard, that he did make you understand everything, even though it wasn’t written down. Everybody always understood what he wanted to do.”
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Spike Lee, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee
Lee on learning the ropes:
“Do the Right Thing was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.”